I Will Rock You-Pegasus is a creature of the air and can generate hurricane force winds to buffet and toss his opponents about as well as blowing down anything that can’t resist such forces. Only kaiju of the same rank or higher can fight past these winds with any level of stability though it won’t stop an energy beam or a stronger natural force should it be generated.

Instant Take Off-Unlike other kaiju his size, Pegasus can instantly shoot himself into the air through a combination of his lighter weight and a personal form of aerokinesis. He does not have to take a running start though doing so enables him to take off a greater speed and a specific direction. He can use this skill to avoid sudden attacks or hazards.

Pulping Kicks-Pegasus primarily uses his legs and deadly hoof talons to pummel his opponents into a bloody smear. His legs strike with enough force to shatter bones and hemorrhage entire sections of muscle tissue, leaving a pile of gore for him to pick over later. He can strike quickly and repeatedly as well as buck to strike those coming from behind him. A strike to the head can knock most kaiju of his rank or a rank lower unconscious. Ranks 3-1 suffer fatal head trauma if their anatomy depends on their head being intact. The mouth is no laughing matter either, sporting some heavy duty incisors and a tearing hook that can rip through thick kaiju hide like a razor.

Meteor Dive-The avian horse’s favorite tactic is to gain an impressive altitude, line himself up with his prey and then fall on them with cataclysmic force. If he misses it takes a bit for him to recover but he rarely is distracted for long as his legs can absorb a great deal of force. If he hits…the results are almost always a large smear or a crumpled and helpless victim. It’s his strongest attack and it’s the one he prefers killing things with.

Hail Storm-Combining his hydrokinesis with his aerokinesis, Pegasus can generate a storm of massive hail stones to batter and bludgeon his opponents under an unrelenting and freezing barrage. The hail stones range from being the size of cars to being the size of two story houses. It’s particularly deadly in temperate regions with a high amount of moisture where Pegasus has plenty of material to work with.

Dousing Geyser-Pegasus has the ability to sense locations of water and manipulate them to an extent. By rearing up and stamping the ground with both front hooves he can force the water underground to erupt violently. The results are devastating geysers that can uproot and toss kaiju lower ranked than him and bludgeon them with intense water pressure. In an area with natural hot springs this can even scald opponents or freeze them in colder regions.

Agility of Heaven and Earth-Pegasus is among the strongest runners and flyers of the ancient world, capable of running circles around slower land bound opponents, charging through lighter flyers and trampling anything smaller than him into the ground with impunity. His endurance is also quite impressive as his massive lungs and dual hearts allow him to keep going when other monsters would have passed out.

Weaknesses:

Hollow Boned-Like a lot of areal kaiju, Pegasus has hollow bones and a lot of muscle to ease his ability to fly even at his colossal size. This also makes him less durable than other kaiju his rank. A broken leg can severely hamper his ability to fight.

Twinkle Toes-Pegasus has thin legs for running and leaping, tripping him is easier to do than on something with stockier legs.

Hyper Aggressive-Pegasus is extremely territorial and doesn’t care whether the invader comes in peace or not. His belligerence and ruthless tenacity are the stuff of legend and he will hound a target until it is out of his territory or dead under his hooves. Needless to say he has no allies and considers no one a friend, only food and competition. This also means his first course of action is always to attack which means he can dive in over his head on occasion and be reluctant to back down.

Average Armor-Aside from dense muscle and wind resistant feathers, Pegasus has no resistance to elemental attacks that aren’t his own. He’s not particularly vulnerable to anything but he has no significant resistances either.

Enigma Addict-Pegasus’s entire life has been built upon the pursuit and obtainment of Enigma in any form he can get it; though usually in the form of a fellow mutant or kaiju. He will go to great lengths and attack without warning in order to acquire such fare as it’s the one thing he knows that allows him to survive. If he hadn’t been captured by Hyperborea he might have eventually advanced into a rank 6. During his life of freedom and savagery, he was a terror to anything with a trace of enigma in their system. He could be appeased with a sizable amount of consumable enigma and wave lengths that carried the energy, inducing him into a blissfully suggestible mood. Under a shortage however he was much like a deranged heroin addict in his need to obtain more.

Personality:Pegasus is to put it bluntly, an amoral and utterly selfish brute; focused on his own needs and interests to the point of megalomania. Intensely focused on ensuring his own survival, Pegasus has never sought companionship among other kaiju, seeing them as prey or as rivals for a precious resource. His path to becoming a kaiju has made him this way and he is also very paranoid about becoming the next thing on the menu. His fear of this is turned into anger which gradually builds into a predatory arrogance that makes even casual conversation with him either horrifying or enraging. He is quite spiteful of anything lower on the food chain then him and finds any resistance against him from such creatures to be idiotic and useless. He has it in him to be rather charming though he only uses this to get close to skittish prey so he can eat them. If he has one redeemable trait it’s that he adamantly refuses to conform or be controlled…willing. When he’s not hunting or patrolling his territory he is more than willing to leave others alone so long as they don’t come bother him first. He has great resentment toward Atlantis and a measure of envy as well for his more refined half siblings which usually gets translated into a scathing fury and primal hunger for their flesh. The Muses gradually got him accustomed to the human citizenry of Atlantis who with the Muse’s graces where allowed to travel through his territory in exchange for tribute. Even then he barred his siblings and anything else from entering his domain on pain of getting partially devoured or stoned silly with titanic amounts of hail. His leering predatory advances toward the serpentine members of the family were not well received either. He was a stead fast enemy of Hyperborea, hating everything they were and the order they stood for. He made no small matter of brutally desecrating and destroying anything in or around his domain that was Hyperborean make or allegiance. The only thing he hated more than them was probably Ethon who was the only kaiju that had any hope of challenging him in the air.

History:The depths of Greek Mythology are filled with many wondrous creatures. From the poisonous hydra to the intelligent sphinx to the fiery chimaera, the pages of myth and legend are dotted with these fantastic beasts. None of them are quite as prolific, nor as majestic as the Pegasus. A regal symbol of creative arts and divine energy, this herald of the gods and steed to mighty heroes has made its way into countless works of fiction and fantasy novels, a noble creature of whimsical imagination…

If only the modern world knew just how brutally wrong they were about most of that.

As Dr. Lerna would gradually discover, many of the mythological beasts were kaiju of no small importance and several were actually intelligent enough to actively speak to people; out of those a few of them were of a sane and good natured disposition….if he was still around today she would know that Pegasus was not one of those cases. In fact he was ironically just as monstrous as many of his brethren were said to be.

The story of Pegasus began before Echidna and Typhon had settled into the role of parents and guardians of the Atlantian capital proper; during that hectic and desperate time when the two aside from Pythos were the active guardians protecting Atlantian territory. They did their tasks admirably and with a great deal of property damage but didn’t always come out of their battles unscathed. After one particularly brutal engagement, Echidna had to retreat from the area with a bleeding arm. It had been a cunning trap laid by the masters of artifice and automation, there was no mistaking that. They had however once again underestimated her power, thinking that being the female she was the weaker of the two. Her rage had decimated the entire party and it would probably be weeks before anyone realized how badly they had failed. Her path back home carried her down a seaward traveling river, the salty air urging her onward as her wound slowly sealed back up. As it did she bled copious amounts of enigma rich blood into the river, tainting it for years to come. Unaware of these implications, Echidna gradually made her way home and a nightmare slowly unfolded as the resident wild life of that area returned.

Little by little the fauna that depended on the river began to change. Deer and boar became increasingly aggressive, actively hunting and eating other animals. Birds took to hunting in droves and leeching the blood from unfortunates. Predators became crazed and began devouring their own kin as well as anything else remotely organic. The animals began to change physically as well, obtaining aspects of what they had eaten. Boars with wings, Deer with tusks, birds with mandibles and wolves with rabbit ears all engaged in an orgy of predation and rabid evolution. A wandering herd of wild horses migrated through the area…and all hell was unleashed. It was a slaughter unprecedented in the animal kingdom before or since. The rush of new genetic material, anything to alleviate the burning hunger, was hastily and brutally devoured. Mother Nature was at her finest and most cruel in those blood drenched days. Equine screams filled the nights as horrible creatures leaped for them from the trees. The random hunter sent to investigate found himself in the jaws of hell and the mutants that fed off him grew smarter. It was with odd fortune that the last remaining fowl of the herd was still alive, having survived through the dumb luck of smelling like his dead mother. The mutants were desperate for live prey and more enigma and they had gradually solidified into several dozen prominent individuals. The evolutionary arms race was reaching its final stage and the literal dark horse was busy shivering in the ruins of so many dead. It was sheer dumb luck that two of the mutants, one specializing in physical enhancement, the other in water manipulation, simultaneously killed each other nearby. The fowl, desperate and hungry, wobbled over and began dining on the two. The fowl grew stronger and ate faster as he did, gradually growing into something much nastier than either of them. Stories of a demon horse began to rise as the fowl, now a mutant stallion with bizarre hydrokinetic powers, began searching for more herds…only to cave into its growing hunger and kill them all. Sheppards and hunters alike vanished while tracking the creature and it just kept getting bigger. Hungry for more enigma, it returned to the tainted forest and began to hunt down the creatures that had once hunted it.

The battles for supremacy in those woods were graphic and supernatural in the scale of their violence. Eventually the stallion and another emerged from opposite sides of the river to decide the uncontested ruler of the area. The opponent was a regal white eagle…or at least it was supposed to be an eagle. It had bizarre insect like eyes and clacking mandibles as well as a pair of bear arms ending in human hands which had beaks for fingers. By that point the Stallion had developed an overdeveloped musculature, a pale bluish coat, heavily blood shot eyes, three toes to a hoof, a larger mouth and tail of quills. The two massive opponents sized each other up and declared primal war on each other before launching at one another. The grueling battle continued for several hours, the aerokinesis of his rival countering his own hydrokinesis and its agility and ability to fly countering his speed and power on the ground and over the water. In the end, endurance was the winner as the eagle had slowed during a turn and the stallion snagged his wing. Screeching in fury, the creature was next to helpless as the Stallion dragged it into the deepest depths of the river. Blood erupted below the surface and for a time, all was still. A group of priests and hunters had come to see if they could slay the demon horse and the other bizarre demons of the forest but found instead the river once again embroiled in fresh blood. They could only watch in horror as something twice as big as either of their targets rose from the bloody waters as if it had been born from it. The stallion had obtained his avian rivals genetics and his powerful source of enigma as well. A murderous mixture of avian and equine spread its wings and flung the bloody water in arcs away from it, braying with a terror inducing screech. When it turned to face its audience, they had already fled away from the river. So would begin the foundation of the Pegasus myth and as the conflict with Atlantis and Hyperborea escalated into the realm of giant monsters, Pegasus continued to hunt, and feed and grow.

As Atlantis continued its explorations into genetics, it gave rise to the Gorgon race. The Wood Lamias in particular ventured far into the forests and jungles to expand Atlantis’s influence and establish their own racial needs and culture. Unfortunately they began inhabiting the same forest the terrible ‘storm demon’ hunted in. Thus Pegasus was exposed to Gorgons and feeling the waft of enigma off them was intent on making prey out of them. At first simply surveying them from the air and staring at them from across the river before disappearing. The Gorgons were baffled by its appearance as they had never encountered something as exotic as themselves this far north. Pegasus eventually grew bold and attacked a lone Gorgon out gathering during a misty morning. As more and more of them began to go missing, the Gorgons became suspicious and angry, slithering out with their bows to find the culprit. It was much to their shock and horror that they finally found the perpetrator at a solid rank 2 and lapping up a pasted Gorgon from the rocky cliff face it was perched on. Upon seeing them, it merely bared its teeth in a faux smile and let out a snickering chuckle. It was answered with a hail of arrows. Infuriated, it returned fire with a hail of well…hail. The wood lamias ran screaming from the sudden barrage of ice bashing against their scaled skin and went into hysterics as a massive windstorm sped it up and flung them into trees and through branches with its force. The chortling war cry of Pegasus haunted the nightmares of the wood lamias as they returned bitterly to Atlantis to explain what they had somehow survived.

These incidents continued for another couple of years with no progress made in killing or somehow removing the beast from the area; the size of the creature increasing steadily with every report…or lack thereof as was often the case. Eventually Poseidon took interest in the creature (being something of a horse enthusiast) and requested that one of the kaiju go forth and capture the creature for study. Being amongst the best fortified, Nemeon was sent first and managed to drive the horse-bird away with scorching flames, a tactic Pegasus had not encountered before. The victory was short lived as it returned with a vengeance and dropped upon Nemeon from the sky. The lion kaiju survived by virtue of his (then) indestructible armor and escaped by setting the entire forest floor on fire while limping through the burning brush; Pegasus screeching after him and shattering boulders with its wild kicks. His brother Kitha was sent soon afterward to punish the rampaging mutant horse, making good use of his superior cyrokinetic abilities. Much to Kitha’s dismay, Pegasus was hyper aggressive and even more proud then his brother, refusing to quit. Every wound or surge of icy imprisonment only fueled its anger. Upon pleading with it to stop, Pegasus’s reply was to take a chunk out of his neck. Realizing he couldn’t possibly take the brutal creature back alive, Kitha gave up and went home to heal his injured neck. Pegasus took the gift of enigma rich flesh and grew another couple meters. Now a rank 4, Pegasus was an obvious and dangerous threat that Atlantis could not hold back on. Not wanting to waste any more time on the matter, Athena approved of Echidna being sent to deal with the monstrosity. When she arrived, she was hit with nostalgia. The area was familiar to her…she had returned wounded through that river; a river that Pegasus now hovered over defiantly. The two battled physically for a few minutes, the difference in size, power and experience working in Echidna’s favor in subduing the brazen and frothing mad Pegasus. The longer she fought him however the more she began to feel an instinctual connection, this monster wasn’t a Hyperborean failure or randomly wandering nomadic kaiju as many had predicted. It was her blood resonating within Pegasus and oddly enough only her blood. She could not bring herself to kill it. Instead she clawed her palm, the scent of blood making the raging horse-bird go still before she squeezed it onto his head. Pegasus took his fill of the substance and became much more relaxed and content. It turned out that Pegasus wasn’t so much feral as superstitious and ignorant…as well as addicted to enigma to such a degree it confounded her. She stayed with the creature for several weeks, teaching it the basics on how to communicate. Her enigma rich blood was a strong motivator and when settled was a surprisingly quick learner. Eventually she left for Atlantis and warned him not to eat any more Gorgons or attack her other children. For a time Pegasus did just that.

It wasn’t until a Hyperborean golem squad tried to go through his mountain territory over Mt. Helicon that things took a turn for the worst. Fearing he was another Atlantian kaiju, the Hyperboreans attacked the winged kaiju while he was sleeping, managing to break one of his back legs with a giant rock. Utterly outraged, Pegasus propelled himself as high into the sky as possible before diving down with all of his might on his two front hooves. The erupting geyser sent the golems scattering into the air and all over the mountain, shattering them and washing everything else out with a violent flood as a natural spring took place. It was then that Pegasus earned his name and the Hyperboreans earned his eternal hatred. With a broken leg and having used the largest extent of his strongest attack, the need for enigma was stronger than it ever been after his final evolution. Pegasus became desperate for enigma and flew toward the strongest source he knew, after his mother and toward Atlantis. His arrival on the continent drove the Gorgons into a frenzy and he devoured any of them he could catch. The Atlantian army fired upon him and he began eating the people as well when he wasn’t blowing them away and through the streets. Eventually the kaiju got involved and when his leg finally healed back into place he began using hit and run tactics to send them sprawling for cover. It was at that point Ethon had seen enough and challenged the chaotic stallion to a dog fight in the air. Pegasus obliged and the two looped and circled each other in search of openings. Ethon was faster, and Ethon enjoyed raking the upstart’s haunches, but Pegasus was in an entirely different weight class and decided that he wasn’t going to play this kind of game anymore. Ethon was caught off guard as Pegasus zeroed in and rammed him like a flying train. Ethon retaliated by generating an intense thunderstorm, shocking Pegasus and sending him reeling in the air. Livid with hatred, the flying horse formed a storm of his own and Ethon’s world became a battery of icy bullets whipped by powerful winds. The balance of temperature needed to keep his lightning storm faltered and it was dissipated as he was bludgeoned out of the sky and then kicked for good measure on his way down. His siblings could only watch as the Pegasus followed him down and began stomping on him repeatedly. The sheer level of borderline glee on the horse kaiju’s face was disturbing. A bellowing roar followed by a disgusted hiss broke Pegasus out of his revelry as he looked up to find Typhon and Echidna staring him down. The rest of the kaiju got in front of their parents and did the same. Pegasus looked down at Ethon’s near comatose body, broken and bleeding under and him. He looked to his sides and saw his wings were splattered with blood as well. He looked over the horizon and saw groups of Gorgons and soldiers aiming their weapons at him. He looked at all the siblings he had never really understood and at the father he would never have. Finally he looked to his mother, the one who’s blood made him into what he was and had taught him a way of interaction that didn’t involve the ancient ritual of predator and prey. He saw contempt, anger, fear, loathing, despair, disgust, and worst of all disappointment in their eyes and Pegasus did the one thing he did best: he raged.

In his thick and horribly accented tongue he poured all of his frustration, all of his pain, all of his churning hatred out for all to hear. As he told them how he had come to be, where he had come from and what he had to do in order to live, the kaiju one by one became steadily more horrified. Here in front of them was what all of them could have been. Upon mentioning the golems, Echidna realized that something horribly, horribly wrong had transpired and that she may have lost the one chance she had in connecting with Pegasus in any meaningful way. His addiction was a part of his existence and he knew no other way to heal other than tear it out of other kaiju. She gave him a voice…but still left him in the cycle of cannibalistic mutation that created him in the first place. When he was finished there was absolute silence…until a musky and ancient smell erupted from behind the group.

A resounding ‘So what?’ in perfect Atlantian snarled out of the crusty lips of Pythos as he slithered in front of the group. The racket had awakened him and he had come out to see what all the fuss was about. He didn’t like what he saw one damn bit. Upon Pegasus asking what the old dragon meant by that, Pythos grumpily began patronizing the much younger kaiju. Pythos had gone through similar hells in his youth and had never turned on his kin. The older serpent was unimpressed, stating that back in his day he had to kill several dozen such creatures at a time…during the day…in summer…when it was over 100 degrees and no shade. He never got any of these ‘river fights’, he had to fight over 50 miles of molten lava! Never in his many years had he let the source of their existence drive him to such an extent as it had Pegasus, not even in his developing youth was he that desperate. Pythos concluded by asking Pegasus if he felt guilty for eating his own parents. Pegasus replied by asking how guilty Pythos feels for selling out his entire family tree to humans. At that point hail, wind, rock and noxious fumes erupted everywhere as the two polar and elementally opposite kaiju commenced hostilities. It was a brutal but relatively short exchange, as Pythos couldn’t catch Pegasus in the air and the noxious fumes were wreaking havoc on Pegasus’s body. Pegasus hacked out that if any of them got near his mountain he would *expletive* kill them so *expletive* hard that they’d *expletive* wish they were never *expletive* born; to this Pythos snarked out a ‘Get lost punk’ to Pegasus’s retreating back and trudged back to his lair; shaking the chunks of ice out of his plates. Before leaving he turned to Echidna and gently reminded her that she can’t save them all. Since then the term ‘The Lost One’ has been used to describe Pegasus ever since.

As the years went by Atlantis gradually learned to give Pegasus his space and several kaiju had to learn the hard way that respecting his territory and power was just good commons sense. Ethon eventually made a full recovery and returned to active duty, his taste for battle thoroughly stunted by Pegasus but every once and awhile he would race the winged stallion through his territory in an epic game of chicken in order to alleviate his own issues with the destructive kaiju that nearly pasted him. When Typhon was sacrificed to create Typhoon and Echidna was paired with Pythos in order to continue generating new kaiju, the new generation of Atlantian kaiju were warned early on not to enter the mountain range near Mt. Helicon or the various springs Pegasus was known to inhabit. He had grown into a rank 5 by that point and though his need to obtain enigma was curbed due to necessity and stability, he was an extremely dangerous kaiju and it’s likely that only a few of Atlantis’s guardians could escape an actual fight with Pegasus in one piece. Hyperborea however had learned nothing from their encounter with the winged horse. They were determined to use the formidable mountain ranges as ways to keep Atlantis from gaining any more ground northward. As it was the area was inhabited only by crazy woodsmen or outcasts of society seeking asylum. Aside from these rare and scattered individuals the mountain range Pegasus inhabited was a no-man’s land of turbulent storms and ominous wing beats. So they just kept trying…and failing…and trying again. During a political exchange, hyperborean diplomats asked point blank what Pegasus was to Atlantis. The Atlantian diplomat only chuckled and stated that Pegasus holds allegiance to no one and that they can’t use the mountain range anymore than Hyperborea could. Realizing that Pegasus was not Atlantis’s personal property, Hyperborea became even more determined to kill him. Pegasus reacted to this aggression as he always had, rampaging up and down the lowlands, eating their cattle, smashing their houses, and burying their crops under massive hail stones and erupted water. Out of all the kaiju known to them, Pegasus was the one Hyperborea HATED with an absolute passion. Despite having no allegiance to them Pegasus was often used as an example of the danger kaiju pose to mankind and helped convince most of the north that kaiju were abominations meant to be destroyed. Nonetheless many artisans found inspiration in Pegasus, a force of nature that bowed to no one. From a distance he was quite enchanting, like a tornado or any other natural disaster. He inspired many works of that time and for the poor who suffered under oppression he became something of a symbol for rebellion and freedom though honestly Pegasus only valued such things for himself. Hyperborea was known to outright ban Pegasus related work and so many artists turned to making him a simple but proud horse with wings, lacking the fearsome hoof claws and tearing beak. The image became more romantic over time until Hyperborea really couldn’t compare the two. Atlantis saw these works and collected them, if only for novelty value. Knowing the horrible truth of the symbol made the art movement in the empire of Hyperborea and surroundings areas a great source of ironic humor.

When the hero project began, plans were made to create a unit made for air combat. Unfortunately stone just can’t fly all that well and the best they could come up with were floating disks that could have weapons mounted onto them but little else. Besot by failure at every turn, it looked like the idea would never get off the ground…literally. While Muu was not known for being exactly trust worthy, it was known for having solutions. Muuian alloy was light enough to allow flight and sturdy enough to function as reliable armor, reinforced with a molded stone base it made excellent material. Muu stated however that their material worked best with something ‘living’ and that a fusion of flesh and metal, preferably something that already knew how to fly; would be Hyperborea’s best bet. Hyperborea scoffed at the idea of using the enemy’s tactics but as time went on the mountain range Pegasus guarded became more and more valuable. Atlantis was pressed into finding a way of at least getting people through the area and so their own art savants, The Muses were sent to find a way in dealing with Pegasus. Eager to see the source of a major art movement, they came to Pegasus in greeting. Having been sought out, Pegasus wasn’t in a position to ambush them and so played along, flattering the singers and trying to get them away from the tunnel so he could eat them. He didn’t get the change though as the Muses decided to sing for him and their enigma laced voices soothed the savagery (albeit temporarily) right out of him. They were able to return to Atlantis in one piece and asked if they could make a residence there. Not having much to lose, Atlantis allowed the Muses to build a temple at the one of the more iconic springs Pegasus had created. The Muses appeased Pegasus by making monthly offerings of meat and produce sprinkled with kaiju blood (chosen via lottery) to him. Having a steady source of enigma, Pegasus was wary but content in letting the Muses stay and allowed caravans and those carrying Atlantian colors through his domain so long as they were allowed past the Muse’s check point. If they tried to sneak through or rush past they were soundly crushed. They were wrong however in thinking he allowed anything but the blood of his siblings to come into his territory. Hydra had tried to visit the Muses and was stopped half way by Pegasus who made it quite obvious that she looked delicious. A nasty fight broke out and Hydra escaped by virtue of her venom and regeneration, Pegasus hacking up poisoned flem as he staggered off. The Muses apologized and went to visit Hydra in person rather than having her risk coming back into Pegasus’s territory. When Hyperborea became aware of this change in the scenario their outrage was immense.

Having few other options, the emperor of Hyperborea met with the ruler of Lemuria in hopes that the more naturally intuned people would have an answer. The ruler of Lemuria was a elderly figure with a great deal of wisdom concerning the natural world and the Hyperborean emperor’s request for aid in killing the creature made him laugh and then drop into a serious warning:

”If you seek the death of Pegasus then you seek the death of much of your empire. We cannot aid you in such a foolhardy task. You look, but you do not see. You hear, but you do not listen. That has always been your way but now it is like a cancer that threatens to spread. Pegasus rose from violence and fury, he is a force of nature unlike the tame beasts your enemy uses against you. Long has been your feud with the bloody prince of storms; long has been your anger. How did such a beast come to be? Do you think the hell that spawned him would die with him? Nonsense. His blood is a catalyst for disaster, what gave him life will come again a hundred fold upon his death. You slay the Pegasus; dozens of demons just like him will rise to claim your people. He is a catalyst for a something you cannot stop with your statues and swords. Your only solution, is the opposite of what you are attempting, what your enemies failed to do. You must capture and control, you must put the yolk of service upon his back. Clip the eagle’s wings and he will depend upon you. The mighty one has a thirst for ambrosia like Charybdhis thirsts for water. We have a tool that can aid you in this…so long as you do not kill it….tea?”

The solution the Lemurian ruler spoke of was an expanding, adhesive thread, studded with golden enigma crystals. Lemuria had used it to train their own kaiju in defense of their country and to forcibly relocate any aggressive native monsters that intruded. It was fired in the same fashion a net would be, weights stretching the material over the face of a kaiju and holding fast. By firing this ropey substance at a kaiju’s face, it induced a suggestive calm over them. While Hyperborea was hesitant to accept this as their only option, they didn’t like the idea of another mutation surge many times the size of the one that created Pegasus happening again. Seeing this as possibly the biggest ‘take that’ they could muster against their enemies in recent memory, Hyperborea gave the task of firing this substance to relatively new recruit, Bellerophon. A famous and tactical hunter of mega fauna and soldier though a bit introverted and paranoid, the young man was tasked with what amounted to a suicide mission if he failed. Pretty sure someone wanted him dead but was unable to prove it, Bellerophon took the rocket launcher sized ‘bridle cannon’ and went in search of Pegasus. Thinking he’d ask the Muses where the creature was, he made his way to their temple and asked as casually as he could where he could find the creature. Honesty had always been a curse of Bellerophon and the then modest man’s question instantly put the Muses on edge. He had a physique that was far too refined to be an artist and that ‘basket full of tools’ looked more like a weapon. The Muses refused and Bellerophon, never one to question his orders, drew his blade and asked again…the guards attempted to deal with Bellerophon but being an enigma sensitive with minor hydrokinesis does a lot for a man. A fight broke out and Bellerophon continued to ask his question even as he cut down guard after guard and eventually threatening the Muses themselves point blank. Their answer was a joint enigma laden scream which instantly got Pegasus’s attention. The scent of blood drew the mighty kaiju to the temple and his braying screech told Bellerophon that his objective was at hand.

Running outside the temple Bellerophon had to keep running as hail stones began to smash down. Pegasus found the man’s agility amusing and decided to add a few stomps just for fun. The earth shattering ‘ka-boom’ sent Bellerophon down a slippery slope toward a trail leading to the Pirene Fountain. Diving into the water, Bellerophon waited for Pegasus. The towering horse-bird picked over area, coming to the waters of the fountain to inspect it. Using his hydrokinesis, Bellerophon grabbed hold of Pegasus’s face. As the creature struggled to free himself, Bellerophon readied the cannon and fired it point blank at Pegasus’s face. The looping strands of enigma laden adhesive lashed around Pegasus’s face and the creature thrashed for several minutes before settling into a stupor. Gasping for breath, Bellerophon commented that the giant horse could fall over for all he cared. A massive thud indicated that Pegasus did just that. Realizing the extent to which Pegasus had become compliant Bellerophon climbed atop his head and ordered him to fly to the capital of Hyperborea. Without further adieu he did just that. While Bellerophon didn’t get the hero’s welcome he was expecting (Pegasus sightings tend to induce mass hysteria and plenty of screaming) he did manage to convince the armed forces and golems surrounding him that Pegasus was subdued and that he was very much alive (much to a certain politician’s chagrin). Hyperborea was instantaneous in its efforts to take advantage of the situation. Detainer golems, golems designed to apprehend and capture criminals and fugitives, were sent into the mountains to retrieve the Muses. The heated political discussion that erupted due to this had several conclusions. Lemuria had the bridle cannon returned to them and its use outside of their personal defense was to be considered a declaration of war. The Muses were returned in exchange for Hyperborea keeping Pegasus, a decision that was not made quickly considering the anticipated consequences. Muu was already anticipating another successful transaction with Hyperborea. As for Hyperborea itself, it was a cause for celebration. FINALLY, they had achieved a concrete victory of sorts against Atlantis’s giant monsters. Upon hearing of Pegasus’s fate, the Atlantian kaiju had mixed feelings. It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving monster but at the same time…Echidna’s flesh and blood was now in enemy hands. Only the god’s knew what the masters of artifice and automation would do to him.

As it turned out…the breaking of Pegasus would come to haunt them in ways they didn’t even think were possible. For now the Hyperboreans had a flight capable base from which to build their weapon.

Present Day

Traveling alongside a large (and ever expanding) group of kaiju was at once a terrifying and oddly comfortable for Dr. Lerna. On the one hand, they were giant city crushing creatures capable of killing her with the greatest of ease. On the other hand, they had so far been keen to protect her – and what force on this earth could equal the protection of a group of fearsome giant monsters? This sense of comfort was quickly winning out over terror and, growing bold, Dr. Lerna decided to go with it and approach one of the monsters.“Sphinx,” Dr. Lerna shouted as loud as she could muster. “That is your name, isn’t it?”The human-face feline turned to look at Dr. Lerna. “Indeed it is. May I say that your dialect, while a mutt compared to that of my long dead Atlantean ancestors, is rather pleasing to the tongue?”“Uh, yes, thank you,” Lerna said, unsure of how to take the compliment. “I have some questions about you and your kin, if you wouldn’t mind answering them.”Sphinx smiled a wide, sharp-toothed grin that was more than a little unsettling. “As my kin would surely tell you, I love nothing more than talking at great length on subjects my fellow conversationalists are woefully ignorant of. Ask away.”“Well, the thing is, all of your brothers and sisters we have run into so far share names and appearances with monsters of Greek myth.”“Greek?” Sphinx asked.“A civilization that came after Atlantis,” Dr. Lerna explained. “I think it’s pretty safe to say you all inspired those myths, although I believe many liberties were taken with your life stories in the process.”“Quite possible,” Sphinx said. “I always knew our magnificence was worthy of legends. Well, mine at least.”“Yes, well, here’s the thing,” Dr. Lerna went on, “You and your kin are all descended from Echidna and Typhon, right?”“Or Echidna and Pythos, yes.”“Well, what about the other mythic creatures? The ones who weren’t children of Echidna. Do they exist as well?”Sphinx looked at Dr. Lerna, her eyes warm yet calculating. “There were many other monsters besides my direct relations. Pray be more specific.”“Well, what about Pegasus for example?” Dr. Lerna asked.Sphinx’s fur stood on end in agitation. “The Lost One. That… that is something Hydra would know more about than I. Hydra!” Sphinx shouted, and soon enough her massive serpentine sister approached her side. “Hydra, this woman wishes to know about Pegasus. I sadly only heard about him. You, on the other hand, actually encountered the beast on a few occasions. In this rare instance, I defer to your greater knowledge.”Hydra’s seven tongues flickered out at once. “Why does the human want to know about him?”“A good question,” Sphinx said. “What are your motives, red haired woman?”Dr. Lerna felt a twinge of fear. “Monsters – that is, supernatural creatures – have been my passion my whole life. Knowing creatures like you exist validates that passion, and I want to know as much about you as possible.”Hydra hissed softly. “Then I suppose your question was wise. You can learn a lot about the relationship between humans and monsters from his story. He was born from my mother’s blood, which was spilled in a conflict between two nations of humans. He became a terror to his fellow monsters, his kin, because those same two groups of humans wanted his territory. He was nearly saved by my mother’s kindness, only to be turned to wickedness by mankind’s greed. Finally he was humbled by human trickery and used as a slave to continue their war efforts, before being destroyed like so much trash. This is what monsters are to your kin, human. Is it any wonder, then, why so many of my kind are driven to wanton slaughter?”Both Sphinx and Dr. Lerna looked at Hydra with wide-eyed horror. “Heavens, sister, I had no idea you held such contempt for humanity.”“No, not contempt,” Hydra said. “I feel no contempt for humans. They are creatures that are at once phenomenally weak and superbly powerful, and it is this conflicting duality of their nature that drives them to commit such rash and unwittingly destructive actions. For our kind power is innate, and if humanity is to ever learn how to survive it should be by our example.”“True words,” an eavesdropping Heracles said.“The hero listens,” Sphinx said with a mischievous smile. “Strong Heracles of Hyperborea actually listens to what we monsters have to say.”“I always respected your kind,” Heracles said. “Even when we fought, I knew we were more alike than different.”“Those thoughts didn’t keep you from burying me under a rock,” Hydra hissed.“Or you from killing the humans under my protection,” Heracles said. “We fought in times of senseless violence because senseless violence was the way of the times. We have a chance to do something nobler now.”Dr. Lerna watched as Hydra and Heracles quarreled in amazement, no longer caring about her query. Sphinx, on the other hand, did not wish to drop that topic yet. “The human’s question has not been suitably answered. What was Pegasus, really, and what became of him?”“Bellerophon’s steed,” Heracles said. “Loyal to him till the end, I heard.”“His slave, you mean,” Hydra snarled. “Pegasus was always a terror, but Bellerophon turned him into something worse: a mindeless weapon.”“Not true,” Heracles said in a soft, mildly angered voice. “Bellerophon sacrificed his own mind and body to tame the beast and keep it from succumbing to its own destructive impulses. It was a constant struggle for him to keep his steed from rampaging.”“You make him sound valiant,” Hydra scoffed. “The Bellerophon I knew was more savage than even you, and a thousand times more vain.”“What was Bellerophon’s story, then?” Lerna asked, surprising both Hydra and Heracles. “How did he and Pegasus come to be?”Hydra and Heracles both looked at each other and, with no small amount of disagreement, began to tell both sides of the story.“Well, there is some truth to the golem’s words,” Hydra admitted. “Pegasus was not an innocent. I remember in my younger days watching him rampaging in the central city of Atlantis in pursuit of my mother’s blood. He was self-centered to the point of cruelty. I suppose that made him rather well suited to Bellerophon.”“Or perhaps it was the source of the boy’s arrogance,” Heracles said. “You did not now him before they were brought together.”“Did you?”The golem sighed. “No.”“Then we shall never know which of us was right,” Hydra hissed. “But if you were to ask me which was more vain – man or monster – I would say the former. Pegasus did not think highly of himself, if only because it would involve thinking of others to form the comparison. He was driven by his hunger alone.”“And how do you know that?” Dr. Lerna asked.The massive serpent shot the human seven annoyed glares. “He told me as much. Once, after my father’s death, I sought out a group of humans called the muses. I had lost much of my hope for the world at the time, and believed their famous gifts with the arts might rekindle my connection to the world. They had been given the dark task of keeping the horse monster in check, which meant if I would have to enter his domain if I was to have their counsel. Sadly, stealth is not my strong suit, and it did not take the flying lunatic long to stop me once I entered his territory. Pegasus was no longer the runty creature I had seen during his assault on Atlantis, but rather a massive creature almost equal to myself in size. With all the social grace of a psychopath he told me in mangled Atlantian how he planned to dine on my flesh. It was disgusting how he seemed to take pleasure in the thought, gloating about how he was going to devour me at length and thanking me for providing such a bountiful meal.“Needless to say, I was not amused. Though I attempted to resolve things peacefully, he soon grew bored with taunting me and began a fight. It was one of the few times I was presented with a true challenge.” Hydra shot Heracles a disapproving glare. “While I had more muscle on my side, Pegasus had more fire power. He could create great winds, generate hail and rain, and, perhaps most deadly of all, fly, whereas I was limited to my venom and coils. Only through my tenacity and his lack of immunity to my poison did I escape alive.”Hydra was lost in her own horrible memories, and as such it took her a few seconds to realize the others were still there. “My point is that Pegasus was a victim of great injustice,” she said in a desperate attempt to save face. “He was so victimized, in fact, that he had no alternative but to turn into a villain as a result. Redemption was kept from him at all turns, and all that remained was a desperate monster. A creature so driven by hate and hunger that he sought my own mother’s blood despite her many attempts to show him love and mercy. And every event that forced him down this road was the result of human actions, culminating in Bellerophon’s enslavement of him.”“You never met Bellerophon, Hydra,” Heracles said. “He struggled with his choices at every turn.”“You idolize that egomaniac?” Hydra hissed.“No,” Heracles said. “He had flaws, but Bellerophon was more complex than you know…”

Imporant Dates:

- 40,000 BC: Humans colonize Hyperborea, Lemuria, Mu, and Atlantis. The civilization that colonizes these lands becomes far more advanced technologically than its contemporaries, and event